NASHVILLE, Tenn.—During a recent interview on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, Russell D. Moore, addressed the criticism that Phil Robertson, star of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, is receiving for his comments on homosexuality in a recent article for GQ magazine.

“Suggesting that people who hold to what every branch of the Christian faith has held to for 2,000 years is somehow bigoted or hateful is not productive for speech,” said Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, on CNN.

In response to the controversy, A&E announced that it has put Robertson “on hiatus,” an action that Russell D. Moore calls “ridiculous.”

“Silencing views one doesn’t agree with, rather than engaging them, is hardly open-minded,” Moore said on Twitter tonight.

“Admittedly, A&E didn’t hire Robertson to be Charlie Rose or George Will. They hired him to be comedic and sometimes shockingly homespun. Now, I thought his reported anatomical comparisons were ill-advised and crude. But that doesn’t seem to be where the controversy lies.

“The comments that seem most offensive to people are his moral assessments of sex outside of conjugal marriage, which were more or less just a recitation of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is lord over sexuality, and he says that sexuality is expressed rightly only in the marriage of a man and a woman. That’s not new. We also think we’re all sinners, and that God calls us all to repentance. That’s not new either.

“We’re a divided country on sexual issues. That’s why every news cycle brings more controversy. Why not engage one another, and have the debates in a civil fashion, without attempting to silence one another. I don’t agree with David Letterman’s views on divorce and cohabitation, but I don’t want him suspended for voicing them. I’ll bet I don’t agree with MTV’s Nev Schulman of the popular Catfish show on sexual ethics, but it wouldn’t put me in the fetal position under the table to hear him voice them.

“Let’s have the sort of cultural conversation that allows us to seek to persuade each other, not to seek to silence one another with intimidation. That’s what real diversity is all about.”

The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 15.8 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn. and Washington, D.C.

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Further Learning

Elizabeth Bristow came to the ERLC in 2010 after graduating from Union University. She serves in the communications department and primarily handles media relations and other PR initiatives for the organization.

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